


We Finally Got it All Right

by just_another_classic



Category: Captain America (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 18:13:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20782931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_another_classic/pseuds/just_another_classic
Summary: "Marry me."Leave it to Steve Rogers to accidentally propose.





	We Finally Got it All Right

**Author's Note:**

> There's not a real timeline for where this story is set, except I'm basically ignoring everything from Remender's run on. So take this as a nebulous comics alternate Marvel-[Number Keysmash] universe

“Marry me.”

There were many other words Steve could have in that moment. 

They had just been thrown back by an explosion of their own making. Sharon had fallen back against him, with Steve taking the brunt of the impact. As the fog lifted from his gaze and he admired the flash of triumph in her eyes, the words had just fallen out. He probably should have asked how she was first. Her brow quirked in confusion before they both were distracted by a bang and the sound of running. And then they were both pushing up from the ground in preparation of incoming A.I.M. goons, their conversation to be tabled for another time. 

If ever. 

They had been dancing around talk of the future for ages, but made no concrete plans. They lived together, had been living together ever since he came back to the land of the living. But that decision had been framed less like a romantic proposition of a future together, and a decision made more from practicality. She had given up her place in New York while she was gone, and he suggested that she just move in with him. Before the mess with the SHRA, and when not on their respective missions, they had been taking turns sleeping at the other’s places. A practical proposal, just like Sharon tended to like.

This was far from a practical proposal, if a proposal at all.

As the sound of gunfire rang in his ears, Steve considered the prospect of marrying Sharon. He watched as she surged forward in the battle, as gracefully as she was strong. Seeing her fight always took his breath away — today was no exception. When it came to combat, Sharon was fearless. It was one of the qualities he admired most about her. But when it came to their relationship, she was as skittish as a newborn colt, and that, in turn, made him cautious.

He had always been the one to coax her into something more. Sharon had her reasons to be wary, of course, and he understood that. Their history made him all the more grateful for what they did have together. That being said, he’d be a liar if she said he didn’t think of marrying. Fantasies of a future together invaded his dreams. But that someday was maybe, a what could be, and the reality was that Sharon was still in his life. She loved him. That could be enough.

But God, if it wasn't easy to picture a white gown replacing her white catsuit.

Then the fight picked up, and thoughts of marriage and weddings drifted from his mind as Steve instead turned his focus on getting the two of them out alive.

Which he did. 

It was only after the SHIELD clean-up crew had arrived and Steve had debriefed Fury that he remembered what he had said to Sharon. He wondered if she remembered it too, or if the request had fluttered away in battle. He sometimes forgot not everyone had eidetic memory.  _ Ha! _

It wasn’t until they were on the jet taking them back to the helicarrier — and a warm shower — that Steve realized that she did, in fact, hear him and had been thinking on her own. Sharon sat across from him, assessing Steve in a way that was normally reserved for opponents. He found her scrutiny both disconcerting and arousing.

“I’m not going to change my name.”

“What?” That was not what he expected her to say. 

“My name. I’ve been a Carter all of my life. My entire professional career, I’ve been Sharon Carter. I have no intention of changing that,” Sharon said very matter-of-fact, like she was listing all of the reasons why she wanted to go out to dinner rather than stay in, instead of...changing her name? “And I swear to God, Steve, if you even hint at me stepping down from SHIELD, I’ll shove you out of this plane.”

He furrowed his brow. “Sharon, what are you going on— _ oh. _ ”

It hit him like a freight train. Changing her name. Stepping down from work. Requests he’d made so long ago when he’d been younger and too caught up on ideologies from the forties when things had been very, very different from today. Women had more choices now. Was Sharon actually choosing...him?

“And it has to be small, okay? The media is going to make a thing out of it, and we aren’t the Richards. We are not inviting all of the X-Men or the Guardians or the Nova Corps or every Tom, Dick, and Larry. Intimate. It has to be intimate.” 

“Okay.”

Steve couldn’t wipe the smile off of his face. He was sure he looked like a complete fool, but he didn’t care. Sharon was talking about marrying him in very concrete terms. 

“And we’re going to take a very nice honeymoon. Somewhere tropical and warm so I can wear a very tiny bikini and drink fruity drinks and relax.”

It was telling that she didn’t mention anything about being completely incommunicado. They both knew that was too much of an ask, and that should the world be ending, they would be pulled into the mess, honeymoon or no. So he said, feeling like his smile might actually crack his face in two, “I’m pretty sure Tony has an island somewhere we can use. He owes us. And, for what it’s worth, you don’t need a beach to wear a tiny bikini. The living room would do. Any day, all day. I won’t complain.” 

Her responding glare was belied by her own apparent joy. She was covered in dust and splatters of someone else’s blood, but she never looked more radiant. 

“I can’t believe you asked me to marry you in the middle of a firefight,” Sharon said after a moment of silence that had mostly been spent with the two of them staring goofily into each other’s eyes. “I assumed when you did it, you would take a slightly more romance angle. I owe Natasha money now.”

She lovingly kicked his boot with her own, and Steve suddenly worried that he had somehow disappointed her with his accidental proposal. Had she been expecting romance? His cheeks colored and he averted his gaze.

“So, about that…” He winced as he tried to think of the best way to explain that this hadn’t been planned, that he hadn’t been waiting around for the right moment. God, he didn’t even have a ring. Tony would tell him to just roll with the punches and accept the win — Sharon wanting to marry him -- and let the whole thing go. But his sense of honor didn’t allow it, and he certainly wasn’t going to start their marriage on a faulty assumption. “Let me preface this by saying that I want to marry you, and have for a very, very long time. But the thing is, what I said back there? It just sort of came out. I had no plan or...anything.”

He waited for her face to fall. He hadn’t expected her to laugh. “Okay, scratch that, I owe Sam money.” 

“Wait, what?” It suddenly struck him that his friends had apparently discussed this very scenario, and staked money on it. “Sam bet that I would accidentally propose? I feel a bit betrayed.”

“He worded it a little better than that. Something about how you would feel so much and then explode. He meant it in a good way, but Bucky turned it into a sex a joke..and, yeah.” Sharon covered her face as if trying to suppress giggles at the memory. She was failing miserably. “Bucky was on the ‘you’d have a plan’ train, but I think that’s his residual hero worship coming through.”

Steve harrumphed. “When did this happen?”

“A couple of months ago. You were off-planet with the Avengers. We were telling Bucky about your ‘fresh from the ice’ days, and the whole ‘proposing to me after three days’ thing came up, and one thing led to another, and suddenly everyone was making bets on how you’d do it again.” 

“And where did everyone land?” Steve felt a strange mix of emotions. On one hand, he was amused everyone had just expected that he would propose again. On the other hand, a fair lot of them were dirty traitors with no faith in his ability to do it right. Which, they were right, but it was the principal of the matter. 

“Well, like I said, I thought you’d have a plan—”

“I can’t believe they let you bet. That has to be cheating, since you’d be involved and could sway my opinion on how I’d ask.”

“They trusted I was in the dark. Anyway, I thought you’d have a plan, but you’d do it in the kitchen or when I just woke up. Lowkey, but still romantic. Bucky thought you’d go all out with roses, champagne, and candlelight. Nat thought that would be your original plan, but then we’d have some victory over some asshole, and you’d propose or something in celebration. Sam thought you’d do what you did.” Sharon ticked off each name on her fingers. When she got to her left ring finger, she paused and studied it. “I’m not complaining about how you did it, by the way. It means I get more input on the ring.”

She wiggled her fingers at him. He caught her hand, and pressed a kiss to where her engagement ring would eventually sit. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more ‘lowkey romantic’.” 

Sharon shrugged. “Hey, we got a good story out of it. Which is good, because people are going to make us tell it over and over again.” 

“So we’re actually doing this?” He asked, because he wanted to hear her say it. “The two of us, we’re going to get married?”

“Yeah, looks like it.” She leaned forward and sealed her answer with a kiss. 

“I can’t wait.”


End file.
